After a few moments, she put up a quivering hand, seeking his.  He took it instantly, and as his fingers closed firmly upon her own, she found courage.

“I didn’t want you to know,” she whispered.  “But I—­I see now—­it’s better that you should.  There’s no other way—­of making you understand.  It’s just this—­just this!” She swallowed hard, striving to control the piteous trembling of her voice.  “I am—­one of those people—­that—­that never ought to have been born.  I don’t belong—­anywhere—­except to—­my mother who—­who—­who has no use for me,—­hated me before ever I came into the world.  You see, she—­married because—­because—­another man—­my real father—­had played her false.  Oh, do you wonder—­do you wonder—­” she bowed her forehead upon his hand with a rush of tears—­“that—­that when I knew—­I—­I felt as if—­I couldn’t—­go on with life?”

Her weeping was piteous; it shook her from head to foot.

But—­in the very midst of her distress—­there came to her a wonder so great that it checked her tears at the height of their flow.  For very suddenly it dawned upon her that Scott—­Scott, her knight of the golden armour—­was kneeling at her feet.

Half in wonder and half in awe, she lifted her head and looked at him.  And in that moment he took her two hands and kissed them, tenderly, reverently, lingeringly.

“Was this what you and Eustace were talking about this afternoon?” he said.

She nodded.  “I had to tell him—­why—­I couldn’t marry you.  He—­he had been—­so kind.”

“But, my own Dinah,” he said, and in his voice was a quiver half-quizzical yet strangely charged with emotion, “did you ever seriously imagine that I should allow a sordid little detail like that to come between us?  Surely Eustace knew better than that!”

She heard him in amazement, scarcely believing that she heard.  “Do you—­can you mean—­” she faltered, “that—­it really—­doesn’t count?”

“I mean that it is less than nothing to me,” he made answer, and in his eyes as they looked into hers was that glory of worship that she had once seen in a dream.  “I mean, my darling, that since you want me as I want you, nothing—­nothing in the world—­can ever come between us any more.  Oh, my dear, my dear, I wish you’d told me sooner.”

“I knew I ought to,” she murmured, still hardly believing.  “And yet—­somehow—­I couldn’t bear the thought of your knowing,—­particularly as—­as—­till Eustace told me—­I never dreamed you—­cared.  You are so—­great.  You ought to have someone so much—­better than I. I’m not nearly good enough—­not nearly.”

He was drawing her to him, and she went with a little sob into his arms; but she turned her face away over his shoulder, avoiding his.

“I ought not—­to have told you—­I loved you,” she said brokenly.  “It wasn’t right of me.  Only—­when I saw you so unhappy—­I couldn’t—­somehow—­keep it in any longer.  Dear Scott, don’t you think—­before—­before we go any further—­you had better—­forget it and—­give me up?”